A. T. ElderClick to enlarge

Farmer, municipal official.

Born at Elder’s Mills, York County, Ontario on 24 August 1875, son of miller James Tully Elder (1835-1890) and his wife Jane Alexis Taylor (1848-1885), he came to Manitoba with his family in 1881, settling in the Blyth area in the Rural Municipality of Cornwallis, southeast of Brandon. The Elder children attended the Blyth Protestant School. In 1896, he and his brother W. J. Elder hosted on their farm what is believed to be the first plowing match in Western Canada, after hearing reports of similar contests in Scotland and Ontario. He subsequently held the Provincial Plowing Championship five times.

On 6 June 1900, he married Annie Lucy Graham (1874-1975) in the RM of Oakland. They had four children: Nora Alexis Elder (b 1901, wife of George Griffith), George Wallace Elder (b 1902, husband of Bessie Shropshire), Andrew Graham Elder (b 1907, husband of Marie Jackson), and Margaret Mary Elder (b 1909, wife of John Granger). He served as a Councillor and Reeve for the Municipality of Cornwallis (1920-1922). In 1928, he was the founding President of Rounthwaite Cooperative Association, which built the Rounthwaite Pool elevator to obtain better profits on the sale of grain from local farmers.